Following on from the success of the Steam Deck, Valve is creating its very own ecosystem of products. The Steam Frame, Steam Machine, and Steam Controller are all set to launch in the new year. We’ve tried each of them and here’s what you need to know about each one.
“From the Frame to the Controller to the Machine, we’re a fairly small industrial design team here, and we really made sure it felt like a family of devices, even to the slightest detail,” Clement Gallois, a designer at Valve, tells me during a recent visit to Valve HQ. “How it feels, the buttons, how they react… everything belongs and works together kind of seamlessly.”
For more detail, make sure to check out our in-depth stories linked below:
Steam Frame: Valve’s new wireless VR headset
Steam Machine: Compact living room gaming box
Steam Controller: A controller to replace your mouse
Valve’s official video announcement.
So uh, ahem.
Yes.
Valve can indeed count to three.
Some are estimating around $800, but Steam has commented that affordability is a primary focus.
I feel like they’ve got to beat console prices. I’m hoping we see prices similar to steam deck at launch complete with varying tiers.
Gamers Nexus reported cost will be in line with budget PCs and not competing with console pricing
If it hooks up to the tv and has controllers, it is 100% going to compete.
They didn’t say that it wouldn’t compete. They said that it wouldn’t compete on price.
Very possible. I’d pay a premium to bring over my steam library rather than getting a console and starting over tbh.
My guess would be that around $800 sounds roughly right… if you try to approximate a small form factor pc with… roughly those specs?
You’d kinda end up around there, but… the architecture is so nonstandard, its hard to say.
You gotta think of it as an SFF PC not a console.
Because its closer to an SFF PC than it is to a console.
Right like, this thing is also a PC, its a laptop or w/e if you plug a mouse and keyboard into it.
I run desktop mode on my Deck all the time, use it as a laptop/tablet of sorts.
As far as tiers go, GN has said there are plans for a 512 GB and 2TB variant, so, there’s at least two tiers… I would not expect like, more or less GDDR5/6 RAM variants though, the whole thing is built too much around the exact power draw and thermal load.
But on the other hand, Valve have economies of scale, so they can build this thing cheaper than a normal person can build a PC. Plus, they don’t need to make a huge profit on this stuff. The purpose of the hardware is to sell games. At least that’s what I’ll keep telling myself until we find out more.
With those specs there’s no way it’s going to beat console prices. The CPU alone is ~$200 retail.
Valve isn’t paying retail.
They’re still going to be making a profit off of it. I’d be shocked if it’s below $600.
The profit comes from the games they sell.
It’s a bit trickier with the Steam Machine because it’s a straight-up desktop. There’s a chance for some companies to buy these as mini office PC’s if the price/performance is low enough. If they sell at even a slight loss and enough companies buy like that then they’d lose a ton of money